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  Raised by the Church - Growing...

  Edward Rohs, Judith Estrine

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  The true story of a childhood spent in multiple religious institutions in postwar Brooklyn—and what it was like to enter the larger world as an adult.   In 1946, Edward Rohs was left by his unwed parents at the Angel Guardian Home to be raised by the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters hoped his parents would one day return for him. In time they married and had other children, but Ed’s parents never came back for him—and never signed the legal papers so he could be adopted by another family.  Raised by the Church chronicles the life of a bright, mischievous boy raised in five institutions of the Catholic orphanage system in postwar Brooklyn, New York, from infancy until he was discharged in 1965. He was one of thousands taken in by Catholic institutions during the tumultuous post-WWII years: out-of-wedlock infants, children of fathers killed in the war, and children of parents in crisis. Ed describes the Sisters and Brothers who raised him, the food, his companions, and the Catholic community that provided social and emotional support.   When Ed finally leaves, he has difficulty adjusting—but slowly assimilates into “normal” life, achieving an advanced degree and career success. He hides his upbringing out of shame and fear of others’ pity. But as he reflects on his youth and talks to the people who raised him, Ed begins to see a larger story intertwined with his own.   With original research based on interviews with clergymen and nuns, archival data from the New York Archdiocese, and government records, Raised by the Church tells the social history of an era when hundreds of thousands of Baby Boomers passed through the orphanage system, and “reminds us that every generation is challenged to find ways to take care of children whose parents cannot do so” (Catholic News Service).

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  Sunshine

  Samantha C. Ross

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  Meet Sunshine. That's her stage name. Follow her downstairs into the shadowy underworld of the so-called Gentlemen's Clubs, where menhide in dark corners and pay gorgeous women like Sunshine to take their clothes off. Follow her to the private rooms where the lap danceshappen, the hustle plays out and the real money flows. Sit with her in the back room with the other dancers, her friends and colleagues,who laugh and cry and rake in the dollars and party as though a zombie apocalypse is on the horizon.Sunshine tells us in her own brutally honest and audacious words what it's like to work as a stripper, both in Australia and overseas.Confessional, confronting, revealing, wildly entertaining and often laugh-out-loud funny, Sunshine: The diary of a lap dancer will take youinto a world that most of us can only imagine and that others know all too well. But only the dancers know what really goes on - and Sunshine shows you this world stripped bare.

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  The Hypocrisy of Disco - A Memoir

  Clane Hayward

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  This memoir of girlhood among California’s hippie communities is an “offbeat tale of preadolescence [written] with remarkable honesty and respect” (Publishers Weekly). 
   
  Born in San Francisco just before the Summer of Love, Clane Hayward grew up on hippie communes throughout the west. Her poignantly funny, sometimes melancholy, and always riveting memoir recounts her extraordinary life up until her thirteenth birthday. School was a particularly happy event—it meant a hot lunch and clothes that matched! But Clane’s mother warned her that schools are just zoos run by the government.  
   
  From a world of complex relationships, uncertain rules, and constant surprises, Clane forged a childhood. She did it sometimes with, sometimes without, her bong-puffing, Buddha-quoting, macrobiotic mother and her wild-haired, redneck father. Hypocrisy of Disco is an honest, direct, and truly unforgettable tale, and a tribute to the resilience of youth.

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  The Winning Formula - Leadership...

  David Coulthard

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  *THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*Why is F1 the perfect example for leadership, motivation and strategy?And what can we learn from it?How does a pit crew change four wheels in 1.9 seconds?And what does that mean for a company like Blackberry?What is Ron Dennis' secret to good time management?And how can that help TV producers?In The Winning Formula, driver, commentator and entrepreneur David Coulthard opens the doors to the secretive world of F1 and reveals in simple, entertaining and utterly compelling terms how he has been able to master this mind-boggling variety of disciplines by applying the skills honed from his years at the top of the world's most demanding motorsport. By recounting his own stories, and combining them with first-hand experience of stellar individuals such as Lewis Hamilton, Ron Dennis, Sir Frank Williams, Christian Horner and Sebastian Vettel, Coulthard provides a fascinating fly-on-the-wall insight into F1 but at the same time offers an invaluable guide to the business of sport and the sport of business.

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  The Wall Between Us - Notes from...

  Matthew Small

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  “The biology of Israel/Palestine simply and beautifully revealed,” from the author of Down and Out Today: Notes from the Gutter (Jon Snow, journalist and presenter).   Writer Matthew Small traveled to the Holy Land to further his understanding of the enduring conflict between Israel and Palestine. While there, he discovered beauty, fear and suffering like nowhere else in the world. In these honest and evocative reflections, Small retells his experiences of crossing into the West Bank to work the olive harvest with Palestinian farmers.    He relates his encounters with organizations that are determinedly working to sow the seeds of peace in soils that are deeply scarred by suffering and war. While reliving these unforgettable experiences, through his writing he struggles to find why the wall between these two groups of people exists. Deciding to join a group of international and Israeli volunteers, Small attempts to show that, despite the ongoing occupation, peace is not lost, but still to be discovered.   “Matthew Small, despite the horror of both the war, and the wall, works and travels both sides of the divide, and brings us to an understanding of where the seeds of peace can yet be found.”—Jon Snow, journalist and presenter   “What is really refreshing about this book is the way Small writes from a very personal perspective, often admitting in his diary entries that he’s unsure what to write or how he feels about the situation. His emotion surrounding his visit and the people living amongst the occupation every day is portrayed in a gritty, raw way.”—The Bookbag

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  Blues for Cannibals - The Notes...

  Charles Bowden

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  The author of Murder City and Down by the River reflects on the destructive nature of American culture.Cultivated from the fierce ideas seeded in Blood Orchid, Blues for Cannibals is an elegiac reflection on death, pain, and a wavering confidence in humanity’s own abilities for self-preservation. After years of reporting on border violence, sex crimes, and the devastation of the land, Bowden struggles to make sense of the many ways in which we destroy ourselves and whether there is any way to survive. Here he confronts a murderer facing execution, sex offenders of the most heinous crimes, a suicidal artist, a prisoner obsessed with painting portraits of presidents, and other people and places that constitute our worst impulses and our worst truths. Painful, heartbreaking, and forewarning, Bowden at once tears us apart and yearns for us to find ourselves back together again.“A thrillingly good writer whose grandness of vision is only heightened by the bleak originality of his voice.” —Ron Hansen, The New York Times Book Review “A major literary work of profound social consciousness . . . [Bowden] writes with the intensity of Joan Didion, the voracious hunger of Henry Miller, the feral intelligence and irony of Hunter Thompson, and the wit and outrage of Edward Abbey . . . This is gutsy, soulful, pyrotechnic, significant. And transformative writing.” —Donna Seaman, Chicago Tribune “A vivid, lyrical journey through the American Southwest . . . [but] this book is no travelogue. Rather, it is a visceral exploration of a much darker landscape, that of the human psyche.” —Debra Ginsberg, The San Diego Union-Tribune“A book of absolutely furious beauty . . . At the height of [Bowden’s] rapturous indignation, with majestic lamentations stretching out almost to the snapping point, he sounds like Walt Whitman in a very bad mood . . . Sweet bloody Jerusalem, when he’s cooking, who can touch him?” —David Kipen, San Francisco Chronicle

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